


The Asset in Burbank

by Butterynutjob



Series: Chuck / Cherik pastiche AU [1]
Category: Chuck (TV), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Charles You Slut, Chuck AU, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-16 20:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2283435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterynutjob/pseuds/Butterynutjob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier was kicked out of Oxford five years ago when he was accused of cheating by his flatmate, Emma Frost. Now living in Burbank with his actress sister Raven and her doctor boyfriend Azazel, Charles and his best friend Hank work at the Nerd Herd Desk at the Buy-More electronics superstore. Charles is tired of one night stands when he meets mysterious Agent Erik Lehnsherr around the time he gets a very confusing email from Emma Frost that puts his life in jeopardy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was intended to be a pastiche of the Xmen: First Class characters in the 2007 TV series Chuck, but it diverges widely from the show in several places, and it will be a little more adult than the show usually is. Erik is Sarah, Logan is Casey, Charles is Chuck, Raven is Ellie. You do not need to know the show Chuck to follow this (hopefully!)

"Charles, what is _up_ with you," Raven exclaimed in exasperation. "You used to be the biggest flirt on the planet. I have brought the hottest young starlets in Los Angeles to this party, for _you_ , and you haven't even talked to anyone!" She stood in the doorway of his room looking in at where he and Hank were guiltily playing Call of Duty instead of socializing as they knew she wanted them to. 

"Oh, Raven," Charles sighed. "I appreciate all the effort you've gone to, I really do. It's just that when one's last relationship was with a billionaire genius philanthropist, it's a little hard for your actor friends to measure up."

He could not have chosen worse words to say to his sister. Charles paused the video game he and Hank were playing and slowly turned his head to look at Raven as he realized exactly how upset she was. Her eyes were solidly yellow and her body was flickering blue.

Raven scowled at him. "First of all, if Tony Stark was so effing great, why did he leave you for your roommate? Second, that was _five years ago_ , and third, there are some really great people here if you would just give them a chance!" Although she had started angrily, she was in tears by the time she was done and she left before Charles could apologize for--for--well, at least for the implied criticism of her career choice. 

"She seems upset." Hank observed. 

"Yes, Hank, I would have to agree with that assessment," Charles snapped sarcastically, only to see Hank blink at him in confusion. Hank wasn't the best at reading social cues, but he was actually incredibly brilliant, and he was one of Charles' few friends who had stuck with him through both his coming out as bisexual and the humiliating expulsion from Oxford five years before. 

And he never minded if Charles read his mind, unlike Raven, or most people, for that matter.

Charles looked out his window at the admittedly attractive assembly of young men and women in the courtyard of their little apartment complex in Echo Park. Raven's career as an actress certainly did bring her into contact with some good-looking people, Charles mused. And it wasn't as if he hadn't had the occasional one-night stand since Oxford, but he wasn't in the mood tonight. He wanted--he saw Raven walking towards her live-in boyfriend, Azazel, and planting a kiss on his red cheek. 

"I want what Raven and Azazel have," he sighed to Hank, watching their easy interaction out his window. "I'm tired of wasting my time on merely sexual encounters." He unpaused the game and picked up his controller again. 

"I just want what Amazazel has," Hank said. "But I would settle for a merely sexual encounter." Hank had had a crush on Raven since he'd met her, but she'd started dating the smoking hot (literally) teleporter and doctor shortly after she'd moved to Los Angeles six years previously. Hank's defense mechanism was to make fun of how amazing Azazel was.

"Hank," Charles said, "You really are too sweet. But you may want to set your sights elsewhere." 

Hank sighed. "I know."

**

Charles did end up going outside to chat for a while--he really wasn't born to be an introvert the way Hank was. 

"Are you Charles Xavier?" He heard behind him. He turned around with a smile and found that the speaker was a very small but attractive woman of about his age. 

"Yes, yes I am," he said easily. "I'm so happy to hear my fame preceeds me. And you--"

As soon as she started talking, Charles could not get the image of a squirrel out of his head. "You went to Oxford, right? Raven told me. I remembered it because I went to a national Delta Delta Delta sorority meeting and met a sister there from Oxford once. She was, like, amazing. She was this super-smart, beautiful blond telepath--"

Charles smile tightened. "Would you be referring to Emma Frost, by any chance?"

"Oh you know her!" the brunette gushed. "What's she doing now? Have you stayed in touch?"

"She was my flatmate," said Charles flatly, "And no, we haven't kept in touch. But I think she's an accountant." Charles didn't know why he thought that; Emma had certainly never been interested in anything so dull as accounting when they lived together.

The brunette got a funny look on her face. "Did you say flatmate? Is that a euphemism for--dating?"

"God, no," Charles said, a little more vehemently than was probably necessary. "We ended up having to share an apartment because nobody else wanted to room with a telepath. We each had our own rooms," he added hastily, even while he wondered why he bothered. 

"So you agreed to live with her when nobody else would? That is so sweet," she said insipidly. "Weren't you afraid she'd know all your secrets?"

Charles pursed his lips and forced himself to smile. "It was nice talking to you," he lied and stalked away. This party had been a terrible idea.

**  
Emma Frost was not an accountant, although she had hastily planted that suggestion in Charles' mind five years before, unbeknownst to him. At the very moment that Charles was chatting with an insipid actress in Los Angeles, Emma was running for her life from government agents in Washington D.C, trying to get enough reception to send an email from her phone before she got killed. 

She peered into an alley that seemed clear and checked the reception--good enough. She hastily entered Charfx1983@hotmail.com as the recipient and hit send right as she heard a familiar voice snarl, "Freeze, Frost!"

The blond smiled. "Too late," she said, even as Agent Logan fired his gun. She tried to switch to her diamond form but was a split second late, and the bullet pierced her high in the chest. She had enough consciousness remaining to crush the phone to crush the phone past usability in her diamond grip before she slipped away. 

**

It was almost 1am when Charles got an email from Frost.Emma@gmail.com. He frowned and thought about deleting the email unread, but his curiosity got the better of him and he opened it anyway. 

Charles' brain was immediately deluged by a quick-moving string of images. He didn't understand what he was seeing, and yet he couldn't look away. The images kept coming, for hours, flashing across his screen. Charles barely blinked as part of his mind dissociated from the stream of images. 

He woke at 7am when his alarm went off, lying on the floor. He had never undressed. Charles suspected that he had just--fallen over. 

**

"Frost sent an email just before she was killed by NSA Agent James Logan," CIA General Moira MacTaggert told CIA Agent Erik Lehnsherr without preamble over a secured video conferencing application on the laptop provided to him by the CIA. Erik kept his face carefully neutral at the news, despite feeling like he had been punched in the gut at hearing the news that his former partner was now dead. "The mail server shows the message was received in Burbank, CA, and we think probably by this man."

MacTaggert sent a picture to Erik's phone which he looked at carefully. Floppy brown hair, bright blue eyes whose color was obvious even in the small picture he was looking at. Redder than usual lips--perhaps they were chapped, thought Erik, and disregarded them as a memorable feature. But-- _He has a nice smile,_ Erik thought, irrelevantly.

"Do you know him?" MacTaggert asked, perhaps based on how closely Erik was looking at the picture. Erik snapped his gaze away. "No. But I have his face memorized now," he said brusquely. 

"Well, that's good," said MacTaggert. "Because apparently he has a weakness for tall, dark, and handsome types..." And the general was smirking at him.

Erik gritted his teeth. Ever since the official CIA telepath Dr. Essex had scored him as a 4 on the Kinsey scale, he'd known an assignment like this would come up. "What do you need me to do?" 

MacTaggert was back to business. "Track that email. If this Charles Xavier has it, or if he understands the significance of it's contents, he may have to be dealt with."

Erik nodded. Assassinations, he could handle. But he wasn't going to be treated like a grunt, thrust into a situation without knowing as much as he could about it. "What was in the email?"

MacTaggert hesitated before deciding to answer. "Before she went rogue, Agent Frost had been working on a top-secret project called the Intersect. It was a database of the combined surveillance information of both the NSA and the CIA, and its creation was required by the Patriot Act--too many terrorist activities had been slipping through the cracks because neither organization had the whole story, they both had a part of it. That combined database, including all the information from years of surveillance, has vanished."

Erik was surprised that MacTaggert was so forthcoming with this information. "So Emma--Frost--emailed this database to Xavier."

"That's what we think," MacTaggert said. "But we don't know why she sent it to him, of all people. He does not appear to have any special forces experience or training, and their last interaction was five years ago and apparently they split under unpleasant circumstances." MacTaggert drummed her fingers on the table before deciding to say a little bit more. "Frost killed all the other agents working on this project, so that's all we know right now, unfortunately. Some encrypted data has been discovered on her destroyed phone - we're working on unencrypting it, but we're not sure it will yield anything helpful."

Erik felt a headache coming on. He wanted to mourn his former partner's death appropriately, but he realized that probably having a drink in her honor at the airport was the best he'd be able to do. "I'll be on the next flight to Burbank," he said.

**

Charles and Hank opened the Buy-More at 8am the next day, as they had every Sunday for several years. Both the manager and the assistant manager were off on Sunday, so it fell to Charles in the official position of "Head Nerd" (yes, that was really his job title) to act as the manager of the electronics superstore for the day, at least until they closed blessedly early at 6pm. 

Unfortunately, Charles was having a very foggy brain day. That happened, sometimes when great masses of people were upset about something--god forbid he ever live in a city whose team lost the Super Bowl, or something like that. He suspected that the foggy feeling was coming from his odd sleep situation of the night before, and he knew there was a reason that happened, but he was too distracted by Hank trying to explain to him about a new computer virus they needed to be vigilant for to be able to quite recall what had happened after the party the night before. 

"Charles, we're going to have a lot of calls about this today," Hank hissed to Charles, who was staring at one of the display televisions in the the back. He had seen something on there--something familiar--

Charles suddenly realized that the Premier of Albania had arrived in Los Angeles. He frowned because he didn't know why he knew that information or why he should care about it, but there it was in his head, almost like the information had been--downloaded--

"Charles!" Hank said urgently. Charles turned around and found the whole Sunday staff--Angel, Darwin, Alex, and Sean--looking at him expectantly. 

_Tell me what I need to tell them, Hank,_ Charles thought tiredly. He walked up to the laptop on display and listened for Hank's mental voice, explaining about this hard-drive destroying virus nicknamed the Belladonna virus, a virus that hid on porn websites for anyone searching that term--the performing name of a woman who happened to be a very popular porn actress. Charles opened his mouth and Hank's words came out, explaining how the virus worked and how to disable it while Charles, frankly, zoned out. 

He was not qualified to be Head Nerd, and he knew it. Hank was the brains in the Nerd Herd at Buy-More, but he was too terrified by the thought of public speaking and the idea of responsibility to be willing to hold that title. Charles had the requisite people skills--everyone liked him, but he didn't get too close to anyone--but he only knew the basics about solving computer-related problems. But thanks to his telepathy, as long as Hank had a free moment to explain something to him mentally, he could relay that to a client and so even their co-workers thought of Charles as a computer genius.

Hank was one of the few people in Burbank that knew Charles was a telepath, besides of course Raven and Azazel. Ever since he'd left Oxford, he'd viewed his telepathy as a way to cheat, and he felt guilty when he used it--even with Hank, sometimes, because the arrangement they had seemed duplicitous even if he couldn't quite figure out who was being harmed by it. Even though most of the staff at the Buy-More were mutants, they didn't know Charles was, and that was fine with him. 

He was sure a therapist would have a field day with him. He was kicked out of Oxford for cheating and now he felt like using telepathy at all was cheating. "I should have been a psychologist," he muttered. 

"Sorry, Chuckles, what was that part?" Angel said with a little laugh, her eyes shooting to Alex's in amusement. 

"Nothing," Charles said briskly, standing taller. "Are there any questions about how to deal with the, ah--" he searched his memory for the name, "--the Belladonna virus?"

They all shook their heads and Charles grinned. "Well, now you know why porn is bad, my friends. Go on now, try not to break the store on my watch!" 

The employees dispersed and Charles rubbed his forehead. _Totally cheating,_ he thought, and he hated himself a little bit for it.

**  
NSA Agent James Logan lit his cigar. "Just doin' my job."

"If you hadn't killed her, we'd be able to--" started MacTaggert angrily, but NSA Director Bolivar Trask silenced her. 

"What's done is done, Moira. Now we need to destroy that database and take care of Xavier in case he has it."

"That database represents a decade's worth of combined surveillance from both of our organizations," MacTaggert continued firmly. "Destroying it is _not_ ideal. There's no reason to believe Charles Xavier wants to use that information against the government."

"He was educated in a foreign country," Logan opined, around his cigar.

" _Britain_ is hardly one of our enemies," Moira snapped. "Anyway, I've got an agent assigned already. If Xavier is a threat, Lehnsherr will take him out, but before we flush all our work away, he's going to determine that."

" _Lehnsherr?_ Oh, great," said Logan sarcastically. "You know he was fucking Emma Frost before she went rogue, right? I'm not convinced of what side he's really on. And _he's_ your last best hope?"

MacTaggert and Trask exchanged uneasy glances. Trask finally spoke, keeping firm eye contact with MacTaggert as he did. "Logan, go to Los Angeles. If Lehnsherr loses control of the situation, you are authorized to take any action you deem necessary to secure the safety of the intelligence." 

Logan grunted happily and left the two spy agency directors glaring at each other. 

**

"Excuse me," said Erik to the tall young man in horn-rimmed glasses at the round desk of what proudly proclaimed itself as the 'Nerd Herd HQ' in the garish yellow, orange and red sign hanging from the ceiling. "May I speak to Charles Xavier?"

"Uh, well, Charles is a little busy right now, can I help you?" The man's name tag indicated he was called Hank.

"Well, Hank, I've been told Charles is the best, and I'm having a very serious problem," he smiled at Hank, a smile which he knew was more than slightly terrifying to anyone easily spooked--and fortunately Hank seemed to fit that category.

"I'll, uh, find him for you," he muttered and walked away almost comically quickly.

Erik heard a man speaking with a British accent behind him. "Alex, really, you shouldn't blast the merchandise," he was saying as he walked right into Erik's back. "Oh!" 

Erik turned around to look at the man and tried to swallow his annoyance. "Excuse me," he said smoothly, as if the collision had been his fault. 

"Oh!" The man said again, peering at Erik with a mixture of bewilderment and--something else Erik couldn't identify, but he did realize this was the man he was looking for. Not only did he recognize him from the picture, but he was wearing a nametag that identified him as Charles.

But the picture didn't do him justice, Erik realized. The red lips he'd written off as being temporarily chapped seemed to be a prominent and, well, luscious feature of this face. _Did I just think the word luscious?_ Erik thought. 

Charles was looking at him with a slightly bemused expression, one corner of his mouth turned up just a bit. "You were looking for me?" he said, in an oddly soft voice. 

Erik remembered his pretext for being there. "Yes, I have this phone, and..." he trailed off as Charles took the phone from him to inspect it. Their fingers touched and Erik was surprised at how much his attention was focused on that small touch. 

"Let me see..." Charles breathed, looking at the phone thoughtfully for a moment. "Ah, yes, the Voxvox 3 has a small screw that likes to come loose, you see. I just need the right tool, over here." Charles walked around the back of the round desk and pulled out a tiny screwdriver. He pulled the cover off the phone and held it between his lips while he used the tiny screwdriver on the body of the phone. Erik stared at the lips wrapped around his phone cover. They were very red. He imagined himself touching those lips...

"There, good as new," Charles declared, snapping the phone cover back on the phone and looking at Erik expectantly, with slightly flushed cheeks. 

"Oh." Erik looked at the phone in his hand. _Stick to the mission, Erik,_ he told himself. "Ah, what do I owe you?" 

Charles was giving him an oddly intense look. His mouth made a moue. "No charge," he said, with a slight smile. He didn't seem like he was in a hurry to get to anything else. In fact, he was looking at Erik like...

Erik swallowed. Well, this is why he'd been given this mission. He thought back to his seduction training and tried to recall what he'd been told about men versus women. More straightforward, he remembered that. "That's very kind of you, but I insist that you let me repay you somehow. Can I take you out to dinner?"

Charles frowned a bit and bit his lip. "I don't--"

Erik leaned forward a bit and touched his hand. There it was again, that feeling--even the tiniest touch made him _very aware_ that they were touching. "Please," Erik said gently, noticing for the first time since meeting him how incredibly blue Charles' eyes were. "It's the least I can do." 

Charles raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Well, if it's the least you can do, maybe I can still get more out of you," he said, very deliberately licking his lips. 

Erik's mouth fell open a bit and Charles laughed, a beautifully musical sound. He took Erik's phone back. "I'm putting my phone number and address into your phone," he told Erik. 

"Tonight?" Erik managed to say, trying to regain control of the situation.

Charles frowned a little bit and shook his head. "Today's not ideal for me," he said. "But I'm off work tomorrow, so I'm sure I will have plenty of energy." A smile crept its way across Charles' red mouth.

Erik felt for the first time since he'd started working as a spy that he might be in over his head. "Great," he said. "I'll pick you up at seven?" He suddenly wanted to leave, realizing that he had a lot of research to do about what he might be expected to--

"That sounds just splendid," Charles said, a smile playing about his lips, his voice like syrup. "It was nice meeting you, Erik."

Erik realized the room was getting very hot and he smiled tightly as he gave a little wave and left quickly. 

He was in his car before he realized he had not told Charles his name. 


	2. Chapter 2

Erik replayed the conversation with Charles over in his head several times, trying to recall when his name might have been uttered, but he concluded that he was positive he did not say it. 

That meant this Charles Xavier was more dangerous than he looked. 

But he didn't look dangerous. He looked adorable. 

Erik forced his thoughts back on track. It seemed like Charles did in fact have the database, and Erik's identity was one of several pieces of information in there. He called MacTaggert to get authorization to proceed with the plan that was forming in his mind. 

"General, he knew my name," Erik said on the phone while he drove back to the apartment that was serving as his base of operations. "I think he must have the database."

MacTaggert made an unhappy sound. "Do you think he's planning to engage in any terrorist activity?" 

Erik hesitated. "No. I don't think so. I'm not really sure," he finally admitted, reluctantly. He didn't want to see Charles unfairly targeted, but he had a job to do, and if he was being honest with himself there was a chance he had misread Charles. After all, he wasn't a telepath like Emma--like Emma _had been_ , Erik thought, forcing himself to think in the past tense, and feeling a pang.

"I have made a date with Xavier for tomorrow night," Erik continued, intending to say more, but Moira interrupted with a note of amusement in her voice.

"Really, Agent Lehnsherr? I thought you always said that Kinsey 4 rating was a mistake." He could hear her smirking.

"I have never said I wouldn't do my job," he said evenly. "Xavier is attracted to me and I'm leveraging that."

"Glad to hear it, agent. Also, I wanted to give you a heads-up that NSA Agent Logan is shadowing you on this as well."

Erik's fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly. Logan, the notorious NSA attack dog who'd shot Frost. _"Why?"_

She made a dismissive noise. "Control issues, probably. I told them you have the situation well in hand."

"I do," Erik confirmed for her in a steady voice. He didn't let himself doubt that it was true as he disconnected the call and then remembered that he'd never gotten permission for the side mission he'd wanted to execute. After debating himself for a while he decided to proceed with it anyway--if Xavier had the Intersect, time was of the essence.

**

Charles went to bed early that night, exhausted, suspecting he hadn't really gotten much sleep Saturday night at all. 

He was awakened in the middle of the night by someone thinking very loudly in his room. 

"Stop that," he mumbled. The thoughts just got louder, though. 

Charles felt himself wake a little more as he realized that he couldn't immediately identify whose thoughts he was hearing, although they were slightly familiar. "Who's there?" he said softly into the room.

No response, although there was quite obviously someone thinking loudly only a few feet away from him. Charles sighed and tuned into the thoughts. 

_...Didn't make a sound how did he know? Maybe I should knock him unconscious. But I don't want to hurt him..._

"Now that's just rude." Charles said, abruptly sitting up. He snapped on the light on his headboard and a man dressed in a skin-tight black cat suit and black ski mask stood in the middle of his room. Charles gaped at him.

The man stood perfectly still, not seeming to know what to do.

Charles finally filched a name from the man's consciousness, and realized why his mind seemed familiar. "Erik!" he said reprovingly. "This is extremely inappropriate." 

A flicker of amusement crossed Erik's mind and Charles angrily reached for his robe, since he had slept naked and suddenly felt very exposed. Unfortunately, the hook it hung from was not quite within his arm's reach and Charles withdrew his arm quickly.

Erik pulled off his mask. "How did you know my name?" he demanded. Charles caught his breath because Erik's face was flushed and his hair messed up and he looked exactly like someone who had just been having sex might look--with sexy ginger stubble to boot. 

But incredible good looks aside--"I think I should be asking the questions here!" Charles huffed. He wanted to stand up but he couldn't reach his robe, so he just stayed seated in his bed, arms folded crossly.

Erik stared at him for a moment and then the side of his mouth started to tug upwards. _He's absolutely adorable, even if he does talk like an old British aunt,_ Charles heard clearly. 

Charles gasped. "An old British aunt?" He snapped. "Do you have _any_ idea what I was going to let you do to me tomorrow night?"

Erik flushed even redder, then stilled. "You're a telepath," he said in shock. Charles picked up _Should have guessed / didn't feel anything like Emma though / is he reading me right now_ then abruptly his thoughts were muffled enough that Charles could not easily hear them. He thought he might still be able to if he pressed but he decided not to do that for the time being, because he wasn't entirely sure he could do it without hurting the man.

"Emma?" Charles frowned. "How do you know Emma?"

Erik looked--regretful. "I've found what I needed," he said. "I--I'm sorry about our date." And Charles watched in amazement as his computer, Charles' computer, levitated and headed out his window, where Erik was about to follow. 

"Now wait a bloody minute!" Charles finally pulled out his mental big guns and froze Erik, with his eyes closed, for good measure, so Charles could grab his robe without being seen naked by the intruder. Unfortunately he hadn't accounted for his floating computer, and as he froze Erik it fell crashing to the floor, bouncing off the windowsill, and several of what he assumed were important parts broke off as it fell. "Damn!" Charles grabbed his robe and stood in front of Erik's face, keeping him frozen but allowing him to open his eyes.

"Just what the fuck is going on?" he demanded of the auburn-haired hottie. 

Erik gazed at him coolly with pale-green eyes, his face less than a foot away. He looked, if anything, even better-looking up close. Charles swallowed and tried to hold onto his anger. 

_You're a telepath; take it from my mind._

Charles pressed his lips together. "Unfortunately, I don't think I can do that without hurting you."

_So hurt me._

Charles looked surprised for a moment, then exhaled mirthlessly through his nose and shook his head. "Oh, my friend, I was looking forward to our date," he said, and reached up his hand and stroked Erik's jawline. Erik closed his eyes and Charles' throat felt tight. 

Charles went and sat on his bed, thinking. He did not release Erik, but he looked at him thoughtfully. Erik gazed back, impassive. 

"You wanted my computer. You know Emma." Charles pursed his lips, thinking, remembering. "Emma recently--came up. At the party--no--well, yes, but that's not what I'm remembering."

_Why are you thinking out loud?_

Charles looked at Erik in surprise. "Thinking out loud helps me. I don't have any secrets, and I know you don't wish to harm me."

"What if--" Erik spoke out loud and seemed surprised to hear his own voice. Maybe he didn’t know Charles had left him the power of speech. _What if you say something I shouldn't hear?_

Charles frowned. Underneath the words of Erik's thought was concern for Charles safety, and an ugly thread of _don't want to have to do something bad if I hear something I shouldn't_. But Charles was distracted as he suddenly realized under what context Emma had come up recently.

"She sent me an email!" Charles stood and began pacing. "It had--images. Lots of images." He frowned again, because that's where his memory stopped. 

"That's all I know," he sighed to Erik. He looked at the frozen man and released him with a quick touch to his temple and a sigh. 

Erik sagged immediately before catching himself, surprised to have been released so quickly. He took a step closer to Charles, hesitantly. "Is that the computer you got the email on?" he said, nodding to the destroyed Macintosh in the corner. 

It seemed to Charles that the answer was important to him. Erik wanted Charles to say yes.

"Yes," said Charles hesitantly. It was the truth, after all. 

Erik took another step towards him. "Are there any copies? Of the information Emma sent?"

Charles hesitated again. "I don't know." He thought all his email was backed up regularly, but that was really something Hank took care of. And there was another possibility--but no, that couldn't be.

Erik scowled. "Do you mean you don't know, or you don't want to tell me?"

Charles dragged a finger across his lower lip, thoughtfully. "Could be either one," he said contemplatively. An idea was forming in his head.

Erik grit his teeth. "Charles," he said dangerously. 

"I will--determine--if there are any copies of the database you seek, and, if it is within my power, I will deliver them to you," Charles said sucking his lower lip into his mouth, before he added, softly, " _If_ you take me out tomorrow night." Charles looked up at Erik with wide, inquisitive eyes.

Erik just looked back impassively, displaying remarkably little emotion for someone who was undergoing such complex emotional tumult at that moment. Charles did give him privacy, so he couldn't name exactly _what_ feelings Erik was experiencing, but it was impossible to ignore the tumult altogether.

Charles waited patiently. He had to admit to himself that _was_ cheating when he already knew the answer, but since Charles had karmically paid for cheating he hadn't done when he had gotten expelled from Oxford, he figured the world owed him a little cheating here and there. 

"Okay," said Erik finally. The emotional tumult within him had ceased as Erik had reached some kind of decision and Charles could not sense much from the man at all, even when he prodded a bit. He was about to compliment Erik on his mental shields when Erik frowned and suddenly Charles' wrists were wrapped in wires that appeared to have yanked themselves out of his nearby destroyed computer. The impetus from the wires pushed Charles back on the bed, and his robe slipped off one shoulder. 

"Oh!" said Charles in surprise. 

"I just thought I would remind you that you are not the only one with powers here," Erik growled. He tried to sound menacing but it was hard when he was looking at Charles' shoulder exposed like that. "Stay out of my head."

"Oh yes, this is terrifying," Charles said, looking down at his wire-wrapped wrists. He was aiming for sarcastic but it came out sounding breathier and more provocative than he intended. "Your power is impressive," he couldn't help adding, quite honestly.

Erik paused with one foot out the window and then grinned unexpectedly. "Yours, too." Erik climbed the rest of the way outside the ground-floor window. "I'll pick you up at 7pm. Wear something blue."

_Well_ , Charles thought, _If he was trying to keep me off-balance, he succeeded._ Getting his wrists out of the wires was not hard--once Erik left and his power wasn't holding them anymore, they mostly just fell off.

Charles really just wanted to lie down and fantasize about Erik--who did he work for, what were they going to do on their date, why did he want Charles to wear blue?--but he realized he had all of the next day to do that and his body really just wanted to sleep right then.

**

Erik had to keep reminding himself to not slam his forehead on the steering wheel while he was driving. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ he told himself. The [unauthorized] computer extraction mission could not have gone worse. The only bright side was that since he had never mentioned the mission to MacTaggert, he wouldn't have to explain to her how he had fucked it up. 

And his date with Charles was still on. Charles had made it clear that the date was a condition of his giving up any more information about the Intersect... _fortunately,_ whispered a part of Erik that he wasn't comfortable acknowledging.

Erik felt an unfamiliar pang in his stomach and paused in his self-recrimination to examine that feeling. He was nervous. He was nervous because Charles clearly had abilities that were not in the dossier Erik had been provided. _Who forgets to put "telepath" in a fucking dossier?_ Erik thought angrily. He was nervous because--

Erik was never one to fear anything, least of all truths about himself, so he admitted to himself that he was attracted to the man. Perhaps more than a little. Okay--he was more attracted to this man than he could remember having felt about anyone before. 

That thought surprised Erik, and for the first time he thought maybe Dr. Nathaniel Essex had not been completely insane to forever brand Erik in his CIA file as a Kinsey 4. He also thought about Emma, and how he had felt about her. Emma had been beautiful, no doubt, and he had always enjoyed working with her, and he'd enjoyed fucking her, and he'd admired her abilities immensely. But if he was to be honest with himself, his enjoyment of Emma was detached, careful. He certainly didn't love her, although he knew her well enough not to fully believe that she'd gone rogue as the NSA claimed. Emma had taught him how to shield his mind against telepaths, even though he was currently a little rusty. He remembered how she would look at him sometimes, from the side, a little cool smile on her lips...Yes, he missed her. 

But that didn't change the fact that Charles made him feel completely different, incredibly alive, in a wonderful and terrifying way. 

Erik walked up to his apartment, feeling the comforting presence of the metal-lined walls. He was going on his first date with a man in slightly over twelve hours, a man who was currently a CIA asset, and therefore someone Erik should definitely not get involved with. Definitely not. He would find out if there was a duplicate or a backup of the Intersect, and then his mission would be over, and he wouldn't have to deal with feelings that contradicted his beliefs about who he was any longer. 

And since he had to do it anyway, he might as well enjoy it.

**

Charles slept in til an decadently late hour on Monday. When he finally managed to emerge out of his room for breakfast, it was well after noon. 

He grinned at Raven. "Good morning!"

"Well, someone's in a good mood," Raven remarked, shooting him a glance but mostly catching up on social media on her phone. 

"I," said Charles dramatically, "Have a date tonight." 

"Oh my gosh!" Raven exclaimed, putting her phone down. "Is it with Rachel? I saw you guys talking at the party. Why didn't you tell me?"

"No, Rachel was--not somebody I would ask out," Charles said carefully, remembering the brunette's comment about telepaths. But he didn't want to get into that old 'hiding' argument with Raven right now. "It's a man who came into the store yesterday. His name is Erik."

"Erik," Raven repeated thoughtfully. "So what does he do?"

Charles hesitated. He could tell from Erik's mind that he worked for some kind of government agency, and that his pursuit of Charles--and odd breaking and entering behavior--was related to some kind of mission he had. But saying any of that to Raven would invite questions he didn't have the answers for. "I don't know," he said, honestly enough. 

Raven fixed him with a look. " _You_ don't know?"

"I like to leave some things for people to tell me themselves, Raven. Contrary to the image _some_ people have of me, I don't just rummage through minds willy-nilly." He tried to look as dignified as possible while wearing a bathrobe and taking a bite of Captain Crunch. 

**

Charles realized that he had to run an errand as soon as he went back to him room after breakfast and laid his eyes on his busted computer. He sighed and gathered as many pieces as he could to take to the Buy-More. 

Darwin was the Nerd on duty that day, which was fortunate in that he was the hardware expert on staff, too. He took one look and said, "You don't need a repair, you need a deep hole in the ground."

Charles sighed. "That bad?"

"Charles, there's nothing good about this. This is a dead computer. This computer was murdered. If there is a computer afterlife--"

Charles interrupted. "Okay, thank you, Darwin, I think I get the picture. I guess I'll have to buy a new one, then. Good thing I work somewhere that I can get an employee discount."

Darwin grinned at him. "This one is kind of old, anyway. It was probably due for a replacement." 

Well, there was that.

As Charles was leaving, he saw a face that caused something in his brain to--flicker--

It was the face of a Spanish bomb expert, browsing items in the electrical circuitry department of the Buy-More. 

Charles gazed at the man in slack-jawed shock as the man nonchalantly browsed for _parts that he was going to put into a bomb._ Charles started to have some trouble breathing as he started to panic. Not only was a dangerous man doing a dangerous thing, right in front of him, but Charles didn't know how or why he knew that that was the case. But he _knew_ , without a doubt, that it was true. 

Charles moved out of the line of sight of the man and risked putting his hand to his temple. He found the man's mind easily enough, although it took him a few minutes to figure out his name because the man's first language wasn't English. His name was Janos Quested, and he thinking about being frustrated because he couldn't find the exact part he wanted, but he thought he had a workaround, and he was thinking about having Burger King for lunch. 

Charles wondered what he should do with the information. He couldn't very well tell the police--they would assume that he'd gotten the information through telepathy, which was rarely admissible in court, and he didn't want to come out as a telepath anyway. He tried to find out more from Quested's brain about where he lived, what his plans were, but the language barrier made that impossible. After a few minutes, the man had purchased his items from the cashier on duty, Sean. Charles could tell from Sean's mind that he did not find anything about Quested to be alarming, but Charles was sitting on the floor with his arms around his knees, trying to force himself to breathe normally. 

Hank found him that way a few minutes later. "Charles! What are you doing here? Are you ok?"

Charles shakily allowed Hank to help him to his feet. "I--I saw a bad man in here."

Hank's eyebrows went up. "A bad man? Bad how?"

"He was a Spanish bomb expert," Charles said slowly.

"Oh." Hank didn't question how he knew; he probably assumed it was telepathy. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," Charles said. "It--it wasn't telepathy, Hank. I just _knew_."

Hank frowned. Charles could tell he didn't know what to do with that information. He spoke very slowly. "Okay...do you want me to call the police?"

Charles thought about it and his upcoming date with Erik that evening and shook his head. "No. No, I think I know what I'm going to do." He remembered something else he needed to talk to Hank about. "Oh, Hank, I have a question for you about back-up copies of things."

Hank rolled his eyes. "You mean, the thing I'm always talking to you about that you never do?"

"Oh, I thought there was more than one of those," Charles said innocently. 

Hank sighed and told Charles what he needed to know about his email server.

**

Erik arrived at Charles' apartment at 8pm sharp, and texted him when he pulled up. He knew it was more polite to come to the door, but he didn't need to show his face to any potential roommates; it made clean-up harder sometimes. His stomach twisted a little at that thought but he resolutely put it out of his mind. 

Charles came out wearing a blue blazer over a blue shirt and blue jeans. Erik couldn't help chuckling to himself. "At least you can follow directions," he greeted Charles with a smirk as he opened the car door for him. 

"I certainly _can_ if I wish to," Charles said significantly, shooting an appreciative glance at Erik. Erik was wearing a black turtleneck and black jeans. "I see you are wearing your favorite color again."

Erik shrugged. "Safety first." He pulled out and headed toward the dinner destination he'd selected. "Do you like Indian food?" That, at least, had been in the dossier on Charles Xavier he'd been given.

Charles inhaled excitedly. "I love Indian Food! I used to eat it in Oxford all the time!"

Erik kept his mental shields in place so that Charles wouldn't perceive the smug satisfaction Erik felt at hearing that. 

Erik had researched Yelp carefully to find the absolutely highest-rated Indian restaurant in Los Angeles that he could, even though it turned out to be in Brentwood--at least a 40-minute drive from Charles' place in Echo Park. 

"So..." Charles said after a moment. "I'm a little surprised you haven't grilled me about that data you were looking for yet."

"Oh really? And here I thought you wanted a little romance first," Erik said smoothly. He glanced at Charles and was pleased to see the tiniest dilation in Charles pupils and smile playing about his lips at Erik's words-- _Erik, you're not here to flirt_ he reminded himself irritably. He sighed theatrically. "But I suppose I could interrogate you now."

Charles glanced around the car. "Don't you need special tools for that?"

Joking about torture? Erik gave Charles a surprised look. "You really don't know that much about me, do you?"

"No, I really don't," Charles said softly. "You seem to know quite a bit more about me, and as I'm sure you're aware, that's not usually the case with me. It's--intriguing."

Erik was definitely _not_ looking at the other man's lips when he said that. He forced his mind back on track and said, "Do you have a copy of the data?"

Charles tipped his head to the side and lightly traced his fingers on Erik's right shoulder. "Will this date still continue if I tell you?"

"Yes," Erik said. "I promise to make sure you are properly romanced." He meant to sound sarcastic but the words came out a lot more provocatively than he'd intended. In fact, it almost sounded like he was talking about sex. Erik started feeling very warm under his collar. 

"Mmm," said Charles with a smile. "That sounds lovely." He paused for a moment and then said, "I don't have a copy."

Erik exhaled slowly. "You're sure?"

"Well, my mail server is set so that all messages download onto my computer. I have been meaning to back everything up to an external hard drive, but I haven't really gotten around to it." 

Erik thought about that. "Okay."

Charles was surprised. "'Okay'? That's it?"

Erik frowned a little. "Thank you?"

"Well--you're welcome. I just expected more--histrionics, I guess. What was in the email?"

Erik shook his head. "Sorry. That's classified."

Charles mulled that over. "It wouldn't relate to a Spanish bomb expert being in the Buy-More today, would it?"

Erik frowned. "Why would you think that?" he said carefully.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps because there was a Spanish bomb expert in the Buy-More today?" Charles said a little louder than before, seeming suddenly agitated. 

"What did he do?" Erik asked. He had no idea what Charles was talking about, but he was careful not to show his hand, since Charles seemed to assume he did know. 

"He--nothing! Well, he bought things, um, electrical widgets or something. He was going to use them in a bomb he's making."

Erik gave Charles an amused glance. "'Electrical widgets'? Is that a technical term?"

"Oh, I'm glad this is funny to you," Charles snapped, crossing his arms. "I was terrified."

"Why?" said Erik casually. "You've demonstrated that you can stop anyone who wants to hurt you. Or even anyone who's just inconveniencing you," he added.

Charles scowled. "I hardly think breaking and entering and first attempting to steal and then destroying my computer counts as inconveniencing me!"

"Well, it certainly wasn't _convenient_ ," Erik pointed out, smothering a grin.

Charles glared at him. "You are impossible."

Erik looked at Charles fondly. "I'll find the guy and make sure he doesn't give anyone any trouble, okay? Do you know where he lives?"

"No, my telepathy wasn't working on him very well, because he wasn't thinking in English," Charles responded, slightly mollified. 

"Oh. So how did you know--?" 

Charles didn't respond for a moment, and Erik looked over at him in concern. "That's actually the scary part," Charles said slowly. "It wasn't telepathy. I just--knew."

"But it wasn't telepathy," Erik repeated. 

"Right. I know it sounds crazy. The man's name was Janos Quested; that's all I could really determine. Oh, and he wanted Burger King for lunch, but I doubt that's relevant." Charles looked around the car again. "Is your secret computer going to flip out of a disguised compartment now so you can look that up?" 

Erik chuckled. "You watch too many spy movies." They pulled up at the restaurant and as Erik walked around the car to get Charles' door, he spoke quietly into his watch: "Janos Quested." He would have the results in his CIA email, sent securely to his phone in a few minutes. Erik snorted. Flip-out car computer; did Charles think this was the 1980's?


	3. Dinner

Erik hoped he looked more comfortable than he felt. Dinner was delicious, there was no denying that, but he found it very distracting to watch Charles as he chatted about his work at the Buy-More, about his sister, and Hank. Between his eyes crinkling at the corners, his tantalizing lip-licking habit, and the floppy hair that kep falling in his face, Erik found himself eating efficiently and mechanically as his training and experience took over because he was focusing more on not staring at the adorably charming man he was sharing a meal than on his own eating pleasure.

_He shouldn't have that haircut anyway,_ Erik thought with a frown, stabbing at a piece of paneer. _Shorter hair is safer._ Erik kept his hair short enough that an adversary couldn't get a grip on it. 

"Maybe some of us like to keep it long enough so someone _can_ get a grip on it," Charles murmured, demurely looking down as he took a bite. Erik paused mid-chew, eyes wide with surprise. He'd let his mental shields slip, and he quickly buttressed them as Emma had shown him. And he thought a little bit about what Charles' face would look like if Erik fisted his hand in Charles' hair.

"I'm afraid that thought was particularly loud and articulate," Charles said, apologetically. "I'm sorry, I'm honestly not in the habit of reading people's thoughts without their permission, but your mind--it just draws me in. Magnetic."

Erik half-smiled and inclined his head very slightly at the implied compliment and then said, thoughtfully, "Why not?"

"Why not what?"

"Why don't you read people's thoughts unless you have their permission?"

Charles frowned slightly in puzzlement. "Because it's rude, obviously. It's--cheating."

Erik snorted. "It's cheating to use all the tools you have to your advantage?"

"Who am I to value my 'advantage', as you put it, over someone else's privacy?" Charles said, seeming both irked and intrigued. "And what if I turn that back on you, my friend? Why do you drive anywhere in Los Angeles when, with a magnificent ability like yours, you could float your car above everyone?"

Erik grinned at the thought. "That's not a bad idea." He watched as Charles made a moue with his lips. "For now, though, I am keeping a low profile."

"Oh, yes," Charles said, lowering his voice. "For a minute, I forgot you were a spy."

Erik paused again. "Excuse me?" He checked his mental shields; everything seemed in place. 

Some of Charles' playfulness melted away as he looked at Erik. "Before you started blocking me--but _after_ you broke into my home, which, as far as I'm concerned, absolves me of any guilt related to invading your privacy by reading your mind--I saw enough glimpses to gather that you work for a government organization," Charles continued blithely, seemingly blind to Erik's mounting panic as Charles spoke. Erik desperately sent him a thought.

_Please, not here._ Erik glanced around the restaurant; none of the other patrons seemed to pay himself or Charles any special attention, but Erik was vigilant anyway. _For your safety, Charles._

Charles frowned at him. "For my safety? Did you forget what I can do, my friend?"

Erik interrupted his surveillance of the room to shoot Charles an icy glare. "Are you always this naive? Or is it arrogance?" He knew Logan was shadowing him, even though he couldn't see a sign of it. If Logan thought that Charles understood the ramifications of what Emma sent him--

"Okay," Charles sighed. "I'll drop the subject of your career choice until later _if_ you agree to tell me what was so important about that email."

One man two tables over shot Charles an unconcerned glance. The man's face was just bland enough that Erik's blood ran cold. 

"We're leaving," he said abruptly and stood up, grasping Charles by the shoulder and hauling him up too. He threw three twenty dollar bills down on the table and got Charles outside the restaurant as soon as possible. 

He expected more resistance from Charles, but Charles let himself be dragged out of the restaurant with little more than some eye-rolling. They got into Erik's car and started to drive. 

"Will my personal safety be threatened if I talk here?" Charles said casually. 

"You can talk here," Erik said, not meeting Charles' eyes. He kept feeling like he was losing control of the situation. "But I can't promise to answer all your questions."

"Fair enough," Charles said easily, too easily. "By the way, where are we going?"

"I'm taking you home," Erik said. "Date completed. I do hope you had a nice time. I haven't decided yet if I'm kissing you goodnight." He'd meant to lighten the mood a bit with the last comment, but he couldn't believe he'd said the words the moment after he said them. He was intensely curious about kissing Charles, wondering if those red lips were as soft as they looked, but he was also terrified of feeling that way about a man and he was most anxious about the fact that he didn't know how such a kiss would compromise or benefit his mission.

"Well, of course you haven't decided," Charles said calmly, with a flirtatious lift to his smile. "You don't have enough data. We should go somewhere else before we call it a night. A club, maybe?"

Erik's conflicting desires and priorities battled each other and he eventually took what seemed the easier course of action: not arguing with Charles. 

"Okay, take me there," he said, dropping his hands off the wheel and letting his foot slide off the gas. The car slowed, encouraging angry honks from the cars following them.

Charles looked at him in alarm. "Erik! What are you doing? You need to drive!"

Erik turned to Charles with a lazy smirk. "No, let's see what you've got. Take over my mind and drive us where you want to go." Erik, ironically, felt more in control of the situation by forcing Charles to control his mind.

"You're insane," Charles muttered, putting two fingers to his temple. Erik's hands went on the wheel and his foot found the gas pedal again. He almost side-swiped a car and they both gasped as Charles tried to exert the fine control necessary to drive smoothly. 

"See, this is why you should practice more," Erik said, trying to decide how exactly it made him feel to see and feel Charles do this to him before he acknowledged to himself that the feeling was 'aroused.'

Charles stared forward, concentrating, breathing heavily with his fingers pressed to his temple as a flush slowly crept up his neck. Erik wanted to feel the heat of that neck with his fingers or better yet, his lips...

"Erik, that is very distracting," Charles said under his breath. "And I don't think your shields work as well while I'm in your mind controlling you, so you definitely shouldn't think about that email Emma sent me."

Damn. Just since Charles mentioned it, the description MacTaggert gave Erik of the Intersect database flashed through his mind and Charles gasped in surprise as he suddenly understood the enormity of what Erik's mission was, even if he didn't understand the entire mission. 

He let his control of Erik slip, and Erik took control back forcefully, pulling the car over and stopping fast enough that both men were pulled against their seatbelts. 

"You tricked me," Erik growled.

Charles shook his head at Erik with raised eyebrows. "You wanted me in your head. Why shouldn't I use all abilities I have to my advantage?"

Erik felt so angry at Charles that he almost kissed him before he realized that was not the appropriate response to anger. He grimaced and got out of the car. 

"How far are we from your club?" He asked Charles, not making eye contact.

Charles looked completely caught off-guard by the question. "Well, it's a decent walk, from here. Maybe 15 minutes?"

"Good," Erik grunted. They started walking in the direction Charles indicated. 

They walked in silence for a good five minutes before Charles said, "Why me?"

"Why you, what?"

"Why did Emma send this Intersect to me? It sounds really important. I'm just a college dropout working at an electronics store."

Erik sighed. Charles was not supposed to know near as much as he did, but of course Erik hadn't been aware when he started the mission that Charles was a telepath. "I don't know," he admitted. "Emma was always a mystery to me, but especially after she--" he forced himself to stop talking and not even think the end of that sentence.

Charles looked at him and seemed to grow colder. "Oh. I see. You and Emma--are close?"

"She was my partner," Erik said brusquely, keeping his shields up as much as possible so Charles wouldn't read the rest of his relationship with Emma from his mind. 

"Well, I'm sure she betrayed you, too, then," Charles said bitterly.

Erik looked at Charles curiously. Emma had gone rogue from the CIA before she was killed, although Erik was not clear on the specific details of how or why that had happened. Now, it seemed that she had betrayed someone before. That wasn't usually a trait the CIA tended to overlook when they were recruiting and training agents--loyalty was very important to them. Of course, one person's perception may not be reality, but Erik was learning to know Charles well enough to know that he wouldn't say something like that if he didn't have good reason.

"Emma betrayed you?" He prompted. 

Charles looked away and Erik saw so much pain in Charles' eyes that he almost reached out to squeeze the shorter man's hand. "She stole my boyfriend," Charles said as though it hurt him to say the words. He glanced up at Erik. "She could have had any man she wanted, but no, she had to want _mine_. And it's not like things were perfect with Tony--all that Iron Man stuff had been really eating into the time we spent together--but I'm sure we could have worked it out. We dated for over two years, for fucks' sake," Charles said, as his lip curled up on the last sentence. 

Erik thought he must have heard wrong. "Tony--Iron Man--Your boyfriend was _Tony Stark?_ " Erik had always kind of admired Tony Stark's directness and lifestyle and was more than a little bit impressed by his _flying metal suit_ , but right then he started to see the man for the cruel creature he obviously was. "He was a fool to leave you," Erik said in a tone that brooked no argument. 

"Yes, well, thank you," Charles said, sighing. "It was hard enough for us when we first started dating. Of course he was commuting back and forth between Malibu and Oxford to see me, and then it got better when he moved the penthouse in New York--"

"Well, best to move on," Erik said briskly, not wanting to hear about Charles' relationship with _Tony Fucking Stark_. Although he did kind of wish Iron Man would fly by so Erik could shake him around a bit. "Emma would have wanted that."

They walked for another minute without speaking and Erik found himself seriously contemplating the ramifications of holding Charles' hand. He was sure the other man would let him, but what would that lead to--did Erik want--

"What did you say?" Charles said, very quietly.

"Umm--nothing?" Erik ventured. Although perhaps Charles had heard the thought about Erik wanting to hold his hand, which maybe wouldn't be the _worst_ thing that ever happened--

"You said 'Emma would have wanted that'," said Charles slowly. "That's the way people talk after someone has died."

Erik forced himself to chuckle. "No, no," he said, looking desperately around for a distraction. "Oh, I think we're at your club." The entrance was actually down the alley a little ways. 

Erik placed his palm possessively on the small of Charles' back and was pleased to see that at least one of the seduction techniques he'd been taught seemed to work on this man. Charles looked at him with a slight smile and a rosiness to his cheeks. Feeling bolder, he leaned close to Charles and nuzzled his ear. "Let's go inside and get you a drink," he purred.

Charles nodded, as a big grin crossed his face. Erik felt in control again. _This is how it should be,_ he thought with satisfaction.

Until he realized they were in a gay club.

Charles didn't seem to notice Erik's reaction at first. Erik tried very hard to be cool and act like he was used to seeing gay porn movies projected on the walls; tried to be nonchalant about the mostly naked boy in a cage taking a shower on stage; tried not to react to the large and hairy man in assless leather chaps walking around and handing out packets of condoms and lube. Charles was at the bar and had ordered his drink before he seemed to notice that Erik was a little pale and sweaty. 

"Erik, are you feeling alright?" he said with a frown.

_I am a professional,_ Erik told himself sternly. _For this mission, I am a gay man, and I am used to this._ In actuality the things he was seeing were both jarring and arousing in a way he couldn't really process. He tried to look coolly at Charles, "Oh, fine," he said, with a casualness he definitely didn't feel. 

"Really? You don't look it," Charles said with concern. A flicker of amusement crossed his face as he said, "You almost look like a straight man who just walked into a gay bar."

Erik swallowed and stopped fighting his instincts, roughly reaching out and pulling Charles into a passionate kiss. After he initially stiffened in surprise, Charles soon moaned and melted against Erik, opening his mouth to him as Erik then licked inside hungrily, desperately, already regretting how much time he had let pass before doing this.

A slight tingling on the edge of Erik's awareness caught up with him and he suddenly grasped the shorter man by both shoulders, freeing their mouths and looking around quickly. He didn't have time to analyze what had caused his own reaction before he was breaking the kiss, but his brain processed the sensation and delivered him a result at the same time he saw it: he sensed a metal skeleton, and he knew of only one man who had that. Looking around, Erik saw what he was fearing and his stomach dropped like a rock as he made eye contact with the smirking, knowing face of NSA Agent James Logan across the room. 

"We have to leave, now," He hissed at Charles, letting his mental shields down so that the imperative from his mind was humming at Charles. 

Charles looked at him for exactly two seconds before Erik could see that he'd decided to trust Erik. "Lead the way."

Erik grabbed Charles hand--the one he'd been wanting to hold all night, albeit under different circumstances--and ran out the back door, which led to the opposite alley from the one they entered the club through. Erik ran out the door and slammed it behind them, waiting until he felt Logan coming closer. When Erik judged that Logan was about ten feet away from the door that he and Charles had just exited, Erik exerted his power on Logan's skeleton to smash Logan against the door brutally. He smirked as he heard the large man grunt against the other side of the door and white-hot anger seared through him for a moment as he remembered that this was the man who had killed Emma. 

He turned to Charles, and saw that it was Charles turn to be pale. "He killed Emma," Charles gasped as he ran down the alley with Erik towards the street. 

_Damn._ Clearly Erik's shields had slipped, but he found he wasn't that sorry that Charles knew this. 

"Wait," Charles cried out suddenly. "The car is the other way, we have to go back--"

Erik's car abruptly plunked down on the street in front of them. Charles eyes grew as big as saucers as he realized what had happened. "You floated the car--from a mile away--"

"Get in the car, Charles," Erik snapped, looking back to the door from which they'd exited the club. Logan was already opening it and coming out and Erik swore under his breath as he remembered that Logan had a healing mutation as well as the metal skeleton. 

Charles got in the car and Erik started moving it before he could even start the engine. His mind was racing. If Logan was coming after him, that meant he'd either been ordered to kill or he'd determined himself that it was necessary to bury the Intersect project by killing Charles and possibly himself as well--if Logan judged that Erik had been compromised.

Erik felt uncomfortably aware that his attraction to Charles meant he _was_ at least a little bit compromised. 

"Where are we going?" Charles asked, looking pale and terrified. Erik hesitated because he didn't really know. He'd been instinctively wanting to bring Charles to the metal-walled safety of his apartment, but Logan certainly knew where he lived and if Logan already had a team there--

"Go there, go there," Charles suddenly screamed. Charles was pointing at a medium-height office building with a line up of flags on the front walk. Erik didn't understand why Charles felt so strongly about the building, but he felt Charles wanting it so insistently that he was almost-but-not-quite mind-controlling him. Since Erik didn't have any better ideas, he turned the car on screeching tires into the parking garage adjacent and attached to the building. Charles was out of the car and running up to parking garage stairs while Erik just exiting the car and Erik quickly followed him.

Erik could feel the adamantium in Logan trailing him, he didn't know how, but the man had almost reached the building himself. Charles looked back at Erik on the staircase behind him and pointed to a sign that said "Roof Access". Erik nodded and kept running up, a sliver of hope leaping forth out of his brain. If he could reach MacTaggert and get an emergency helicopter evac---

They burst onto the roof at the same time, as Erik had nearly overtaken Charles. Charles was bent double, huffing hard as Erik ran by him with a pat on the back--eight floors of stairs; Erik was impressed even though the younger man looked like he wanted to die and Erik had just barely gotten a workout. 

"Fuck," huffed Charles with his hands braced against his spread knees, "You."

Erik grinned despite the situation as he called MacTaggert, hope for them blossoming in his chest. Between himself and Charles, they could surely hold off Logan until the CIA could get a chopper to them--with the resources the CIA had in a city the size of Los Angeles, they should only have to wait a couple minutes. 

MacTaggert wasn't answering. 

Erik tried again and again and was getting angry and upset trying to reach the general so he almost didn't hear Logan say softly behind him, "Time's up, Lehnsherr."

Erik cursed himself for not not being more vigilantly aware of the other's approach. He could feel Logan's metal skeleton; could throw the Logan off the roof if he wanted. Turning, he started to use his power to lift the man before Logan was even in his line of sight, when he heard Logan say, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Erik completed his turn without throwing Logan off the roof, although he was so close to the edge it was tempting, when he saw why he wouldn't want to do that: Logan was holding Charles in a half-nelson with his right arm as his left held a plastic gun loaded with plastic bullets and pointed at Charles' head--Erik was really just assuming they were plastic; he only knew that they weren't metal. Erik thought about the throwing knives strapped to his ankle and the gun in his concealed holster but didn't do anything about that just yet, because Logan was still holding Charles firmly. Logan would survive a fall, but Charles wouldn't. Logan also hadn't killed Charles immediately, which meant there might still be hope. 

"I guess MacTaggert didn't pick up, eh?" Logan grunted at Erik with only the tiniest flicker of detached sympathy in his eyes. "Well, I can fill you in. We all had a big meeting today about this little guy--" he shook Charles in a way that made Erik's blood boil "--and what the geeks got off of Frost's destroyed computer. Apparently there used to be a lot more data about this Intersect database and how it worked in the CIA files, but anyone who worked on it mysteriously forgot everything about it. Including you, Lehnsherr."

Erik was shocked, but he was too well-trained to let that show on his face. He'd worked on the Intersect project? And had then forgotten? Did MacTaggert know? Erik also recalled that he knew someone who could make people forget. For the first time since he'd heard Emma had died, some of his old familiar distrust of her found its way into his mind.

Charles fist suddenly snapped out and caught Logan in the groin and Logan let go of him at the shock of the movement. Charles quickly got out of arm's reach and yelled, "Erik, no!" As Erik began to levitate Logan.

Logan hovered in mid-air as Erik debated listening to Charles and then decided it would be better to ask forgiveness than permission. Erik started to throw Logan over the side--

\--And suddenly he couldn't move or freely use his ability or talk. He watched in utter frustration as Logan floated down until he was on the roof of the building again. He smirked at Erik. "Wow, Lehnsherr, he's really got you whipped," Logan casually commented. "I guess even Kinsey 4 was a conservative estimate."

Erik saw red but could not say anything in response. 

Logan turned to Charles, who was watching Erik with an ashen face. "Do you have a copy of the database?"

Charles licked his lips nervously and shot a glance at Erik. _What answer can I give him that will keep me alive?_ Erik heard in his head.

_I don't know,_ Erik thought back miserably. _I'm not sure whether his priority is to destroy the Intersect rather than let it get into the wrong hands or to protect the possibility that it might still exist._ He knew the CIA would prefer the latter choice--or would have at one time, he had no idea if MacTaggert had changed the official position--but he suspected the NSA (for whom Logan worked) would prefer the former. Then something occurred to him. _Can't you read his mind and find out?_

_There's something blocking me--it feels like a physical barrier. I can feel him behind it but it's tricky. Also I can't mind-control him until I get used to this. I need time._

Just then, Logan raised the plastic gun to Charles. "I need an answer, pretty boy."

"I have a copy," Charles said in a small voice. Erik wanted to close his eyes.

Logan scowled and cocked the gun. "Where is it?"

"It's--it's--" Charles eyes fixed on something in the distance and for a moment he completely zoned out. 

Logan and Erik looked at each other in confusion.

"We're wasting time!" Charles suddenly shouted, running back towards the staircase. "Need to get to the third floor!"

"What the hell is wrong with him?" Logan asked in bewilderment as Charles ran by him, heedless of Logan's plastic gun. 

Erik found that he could move and talk again. "Charles, what are you talking about? What's on the third floor?" He ran after Charles and Logan followed, growling, after the both of them.

"He's about to be assassinated!" Charles gasped, his face red with exertion as he took the stairs down, two at a time.

"Who is?" Erik and Logan said together.

"The Premier of Albania!" Charles shouted back.

Erik wondered if this was some elaborate telepath ploy to escape Logan, but if it was, it wasn't working, because Logan was easily keeping pace with them. 

_I saw the blueprints for this building in my head when we drove by,_ Charles explained to Erik mentally. It seemed that he, understandably, didn't want to waste his breath on talking. _I saw the building and a memory was triggered, or--downloaded. Similar to how I knew about that Spanish bomb expert at the Buy-More. And how I know that that very same bomb expert is about to assassinate the Premier of Albania in this building. Erik, I think this Intersect database is--in me._

Erik frowned as he tried to wrap his head around that and the three of them burst into the third floor hallway. "This way," Charles gasped, sweating, his hair sticking to his face, but running like a man possessed. 

He turned abruptly and they were at the doorway of a large ballroom that was filled with dining dignitaries. Waiters were just clearing the desert of the tables, and a man was just walking up to a podium in the center of the room.

Charles eyes desperately scanned the room. "There," he said with a grim finality, "Janos Quested." He indicated a smooth-skinned Latino man who was wheeling a service cart to the center of the room. Logan and Erik approached the man from either side until he realized what was going on and tried to scramble across a table until Logan tackled him with relish. 

The cart was beeping.


	4. After Dinner

All eyes were drawn to the center of the room and a hush came over the diners as Erik pulled the tablecloth off the cart and displayed an laptop with a timer on the screen that was counting down; it had just passed three minutes. 

Erik and Logan looked at each other. They both knew three minutes was not enough time to evacuate everyone in the room, but that was no reason not to try. 

"Charles, you have to get out of here," Erik urged, as Logan started yelling at everyone in the room to get out as fast as possible. 

Charles violently shook off Erik's touch. "No, Erik, I can do this!" He shouted. Charles put two fingers to his temple and after a moment he started typing fast on the keyboard. Erik was half-watching as he helped to corral people out--was Charles going to a porn website--?

A moment after a shapely young naked woman appeared on the screen, the screen flashed blue and then glowed white, then flicked to static and faded to black. The countdown had stopped and Charles shakily pulled out a handful of wires that had connected the laptop to a metal box underneath it, then looked at Erik.

"Electrical widgets," Charles said to Erik, with a distant grin.

People kept pouring out of the room even though Logan shouted to everyone that they were safe now. 

He walked up to Charles tiredly. "Ok, kid, tell me how you knew about this."

Charles eyed Logan warily and straightened up. He took a step backwards so that he was standing just in front of Erik, when Erik stepped away from him and pulled a gun he levelled at Charles. _I'm sorry about this, but please trust me._

Charles gasped and gave Erik a look full of so much betrayal that Erik gritted his teeth. 

"Tell us where the Intersect is, Xavier," Erik gritted out. Logan was looking at Erik in surprise. 

"It's--in me," Charles breathed, terrified that this was the wrong answer. He could stop Erik from killing him if he needed to, but he still couldn't get a firm grasp on the other agent's mind and he realized for one of the first times in his life that he was in a lot of danger.

"That's not possible," Logan said, his gun out now and also trained on Charles. Charles felt cold and clammy. "The Intersect can only be uploaded to a person if that person is a telepath."

"But I am a telepath!" Charles gasped even as Erik thought, _Don't tell him!_

Logan snorted as he cocked his gun. "Nice try, kid. Do you think I would have overlooked that part of your file?"

"I can prove it," Charles said, and his blue eyes went cold for a moment, reminding Erik startlingly of Emma for a split second, before Erik felt his left hand move up and slap his own face hard.

"What the fuck?" Erik growled, moving both hands to the gun now. Charles' lip twitched as Logan barked out a shout of laughter. 

"Okay, that was funny," Logan allowed, "But it doesn't prove anything to me, because it could have been Lehnsherr deciding you're more important that his pride. As unlikely as that is," he said, giving Erik a sidelong glance. "Read my mind."

Charles frowned in frustration. "I've been trying to, but your mind--there's something blocking me--"

"How convenient," Logan drawled. "I'm the one person whose mind you can't read?" Charles sensed something in Logan then--he had heard that from other telepaths before. 

"You know that though," Charles said, bringing two fingers up to his temples and closing his eyes in order to better concentrate. "Not every telepath is able to read your mind."

Logan was quiet for a moment. "I haven't heard anything yet that has convinced me," he said gruffly. 

Charles was concentrating so hard that he was starting to sweat. "Your bones are coated with metal--adamantium. The man who did this to you made promises he never kept."

Logan's lips turned up in a sneer at the unpleasant memory. "That information is not exactly secret in some circles. Lehnsherr could have told you that. Tell me something nobody else knows."

Charles was getting more used to navigating around the metal blocking him from seeing Logan's thoughts, and he deliberately chased down secrets. He avoided anything with the tinge of work, national policy, or patriotism and delved for the personal--sexual. _That's what people keep secret,_ Charles thought.

"Marie," he said slowly. 

The smirk left Logan's face like it had been wiped away. "What did you say?"

Charles swallowed. This was an inherent risk of revealing something personal. "You want Marie," he said clearly, looking Logan in the eye. "You have fantasies that when she's old enough--"

"Enough." Logan abruptly lowered his weapon. "Stand down, Lehnsherr."

Erik lowered his weapon, too, looking at Logan in bemusement. 

"I need to make a call," Logan said, with a tinge of red high on his cheekbones. He stepped about twenty feet away from the two men in the large and deserted banquet room and started muttering into his cell phone. 

Erik turned to Charles. "I'm sorry," he said immediately. "I needed you to tell Logan in a way he would believe."

"Yes, well, I'm sorry I made you slap yourself," Charles said, not completely mollified. "Erik, why is everyone so surprised that I am a telepath? I know I don't go around flaunting it, but it was certainly in any records on me from Oxford--that's why Emma and I were roommates, after all."

"I don't know. I also didn't know that the Intersect could be held in the mind of a telepath, though," Erik said thoughtfully. He looked at Charles as something occurred to him. "Emma erased a lot of data and minds before she sent you that email. Maybe she edited your file to remove any references to you being a telepath?"

Charles was contemplating this as Logan finished his call and walked back over to Charles and Erik. "The sovereign nation of Albania is in your debt," Logan said as he approached. "Which means, Xavier, welcome to being a civil servant. As long as the only copy of the Intersect is in your mind, you have a right to continue bein' alive."

"Well, that's very kind of you," Charles said faintly. 

" _You,_ " Logan thumped Erik in the chest with a stubby index finger. "You get to be his handler. Pretend to be his boyfriend, but only pretend _because_ \--" Logan preened, "I'm staying on too. And if I suspect that you've compromised yourself, I won't hesitate to take you out."

"Death threats already," Erik said mildly. "This is going to be a great working relationship, I can tell." Inside he was conflicted, happy that he and Charles were both going to live, happy that he was going to be working closely with Charles going forward--and angry at the thought that he might compromise himself by having an _actual_ relationship with Charles. Nevermind that he didn't know how he was going to keep that from happening, because even at that moment he found himself looking at Charles’ luscious lips as they said the word--

"No," said Charles. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

Logan and Erik both frowned and looked at him. 

"I'm not interested in your _job offer,_ " Charles said clearly. "Figure out how to get this Intersect out of my head and let me get on with my life."

"What life?" Erik said rudely earning him a glare from Charles before Logan said, "It's not that easy, kid."

Logan looked at Charles with more sympathy than Erik would have thought him capable of. "Look. We thought Emma had uploaded it into herself and was sending you a copy for safekeeping. It's not the kind of thing that can be uninstalled, but Charles--" Logan hesitated and rubbed his forehead and continued more quietly. "I understand this must be hard for you, I really do. But the information in your head is the combined intelligence from the two most productive agencies of espionage in the United States. It just needs a mind to make sense of it, and your does, as you proved tonight. You saved hundreds of lives tonight, and could potentially save thousands more."

Charles was wavering. "The CIA will keep working on a finding a way to remove it from you," Erik said smoothly, stepping forward and putting a hand on Charles' shoulder. He wasn't sure that what he said was true, but he wanted his words to give Charles more reason to hope than hairy old Wolverine (that was Logan's nickname with some of the guys in the NSA.)

Charles snorted with a little bit of mirth behind it as Logan gave Erik an irritated frown. 

Charles sighed. "Alright."

**

Erik dropped Charles off at his home in Echo Park around 2:00am but he stayed parked on the street outside of Charles' home for a while afterward. He was sending some encrypted emails to MacTaggert, hoping she was still the person to whom he reported. After about forty-five minutes he saw Charles leave the apartment and get in his own car. Erik frowned and followed him from a safe distance. 

Since it was late and the freeways were clear it didn't take Charles that long to reach his destination: the beach in Santa Monica. Erik watched as Charles walked out on the sand and then sat down. Erik waited, but for an hour Charles did nothing else. Erik finally got out of his car and approached Charles on the beach.

"Took you long enough," Charles said without looking at Erik. Erik looked at Charles and by the light of the moon he saw the exhaustion written in his features. "I could sense you, you know."

"You should get some rest," Erik said gently. Charles didn't respond, except to pull his knees up and put his head down on them. 

"I tried to put Oxford and Emma behind me," Charles said quietly after several minutes. "And to certain extent, I tried to do that with telepathy as well."

Erik sat down next to him, quietly, not touching him. After a moment, Charles continued. 

"I just keep thinking--why me? Why would Emma send this to me? Obviously she intended me to upload it, and I have. But why couldn't she just--upload it into herself? It probably would have saved her life!"

Erik reached out an arm then and rested it on Charles' back. "I'm sorry, Charles, I don't know. Apparently she wiped my mind as well." And Erik was more than a little bitter about that.

Charles glanced over at Erik then. "And what are we going to do about this?" He gestured between himself in Erik that very obviously referred to the relationship between the two of them. 

"Just like Logan said," Erik said levelly, ignoring the lump in his throat. "I'm your pretend boyfriend. Otherwise your friends and family will think I'm just a big creepy guy who follows you around everywhere."

Charles smiled tiredly at Erik for the comment but didn't say anything for a while. "And what happens if it's not pretend?" he finally said softly.

"Charles..." Erik put his head in his hands. He felt conflicted and confused for so many reasons. He wanted Charles. But he was straight. Except Dr. Essex said he _wasn't_ straight. And now his orders were to pretend to be Charles' boyfriend--but not really. And Logan had had a point about his pride--he didn't want Charles to see him as anything but confident, in-control...experienced. 

"My friend, I'm not reading your mind, but I can tell you have some strong emotions about this," Charles finally said, gazing at Erik with big, soft blue eyes. 

Erik looked into Charles’ eyes and for a moment everything seemed so simple. He brought his hand up to Charles' temple and stroked his hair back, then leaned in and kissed Charles on the lips. Charles' mouth opened beneath his, and their tongues slid past each other as Erik found his hand sneaking to card his fingers into Charles hair. He fisted slightly, and the gasp that wrought in Charles called parts of his body to attention. 

He pushed Charles back in the sand and they continued to kiss. Erik kissed and bit every part of Charles' neck that he could and put his hands under Charles' shirt to thumb his sensitive nipples, making the other man whimper. Charles' hands roamed his body, too, but neither man opened the other's pants--Erik was not ready for that, although he also didn't want to explain that to Charles, and Charles seemed content to led Erik lead.

He was entranced by the noises Charles made and Erik licked and bit at him. He was so mesmerized by how different this body was from anyone he had ever been with before that he didn't notice the time passing until he saw the light in the sky. He lifted his head in a daze. 

"I think we should probably go home," Charles murmured to him, his voice full of regret. Erik nodded. 

"Logan can't know," Erik blurted out as they walked to their cars. "About--this. I mean, if we're--going to--you know." And Erik flushed with embarrassment and felt angry at his own awkwardness. 

Charles nodded, a soft smile on his face. "I know." He kissed Erik gently on the cheek and then got into his car and drove away as Erik watched him go. For a moment Erik had the briefest suspicion that none of his mental shields worked, and that Charles knew every thought that passed through his head. He shook his head to rid himself of that feeling.

**  
Charles almost pulled over to jerk off on the way home. He knew Erik wasn't intending to be a tease, but being patient while Erik discovered what it was like to be with a man was taking Charles to the limit of what he could tolerate. It would have been intolerable except that the man was so maddeningly sexy and earnest and shy about it.

Usually straight guys just wanted Charles to suck them off. But Erik was not that at all. 

Although Charles wouldn't mind sucking him off. Eventually. 

He shook his head to get that thought out of his head and when he checked the time he realized that he couldn't go to sleep--he had just enough time to shower and get ready for work for his 8am shift the the Buy-More. At least he could jerk off in the shower.

**   
Charles staggered into work about fifteen minutes late, as he'd encountered what was apparently some sort of time warp in his shower. Hank was the first person to greet him. 

"So it worked?" Hank said without preamble. He was referring to Charles having reached out to him telepathically the night before when he'd needed to remember how the Belladonna virus worked, Charles knew. 

Charles nodded and yawned widely. "Yes, the virus screwed up the computer and stopped the countdown." Charles looked at Hank with bleary but grateful eyes. "Thank you, Hank. I wish I could tell you why that it was so important, but it was."

"Oh, you don't need to tell me about your weird bondage games with your new boyfriend," Hank muttered, and Charles laughed loudly at the very idea. 

"Have you met the new guy?" Hank said, seeming to cower a bit as someone approached him from behind Charles. Charles turned around with his best charming smile but it froze in shock as he saw--

"Logan. James Logan," the man said, proffering a very large hand for Charles to shake. He was wearing the green Buy-More polo shirt that all non-Nerd-Herd employees wore and it looked more than a little incongruous stretched across his wide chest.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Charles responded automatically. Logan gave him a knowing grin and said, "Well, it was nice to meet you, Charmed."

"Charles," Charles corrected automatically.

Logan shrugged, the physical equivalent of 'whatever'. "Let me know if you need me to move anything heavy. After all, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

Charles found his distaste for the man returning. He started to feel a little bit like a rat, trapped in a maze. And yet--

Then Erik walked into the store, freshly showered and shaved, coming towards Charles with an easy, relaxed smile. Hank saw him coming and made himself scarce. Logan saw him, too, and scowled as he walked slowly towards the back of the store, not taking his eyes off the auburn-haired man. 

"Good morning," Erik said smoothly, his eyes raking over Charles. "I wanted to thank you for a wonderful date last night."

Charles' jaw dropped. 'Wonderful' is not the word he would have used.

"I know it's early, but I thought I would see if you would be interested in having lunch with me later?" Erik casually drew a finger along Charles' forearm as he asked, looking down at his finger while it did so.

Charles found his voice. "That sounds--lovely. Thank you."

"See you later, then." Erik hesitated for a moment and then leaned forward to press a kiss into Charles' cheek. He smelled amazing and Charles thought for a moment about dragging him behind the Nerd Herd desk for a morning quickie, but managed to restrain himself. 

Charles thought as he walked Erik walk out that if he was a trapped rat, at least he had some interesting puzzles to keep him occupied while he tried to find his way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are plenty of Chuck storylines I can "Cherik-ify" so I am thinking about making this a series. Erik has a long way to go in being comfortable with himself and I deliberately did not tie up all the loose ends. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you liked it!


End file.
